There were teachers and writers and veterans. Nurses and doctors, pharmacists and paramedics. A Broadway costume designer, a jazz trumpeter, a detective and a World War II veteran. There were husbands and wives who died within days of each other.
Each life precious, just as every life is. Each life giving us a glimpse of the faces behind these numbers. Each life representing a web, a cascade, of losses.
The reading of obituaries could become an obsession in the age of coronavirus. I've tried to keep it to a minimum. But today, of all days, seemed an appropriate one to honor the dead in this way. To know their stories, to celebrate their lives.